I don’t think calling these people spies is the right term anymore, considering who is in the White House right now, and I don’t mean Trump.

The Heritage Foundation began influencing U.S. policy starting in the early 80s, which is also around the time political divisions in America started becoming more polarized as standard of living for the middle class began to worsen.

The polarization that began in the 80s has gotten more and more extreme, to the point that now far-right groups are an important part of the current President’s voter base. When you look at the destruction and dismantling of the government currently underway by the administration, you have to understand, this is really not an attack on the left/DEI. Their strategy first began decades ago, long before anybody heard of DEI. First it was “multiculturalism,” then it was “political correctness,” then “wokeness,” and now the scapegoat is “DEI.”

It’s an attack on democracy and individual freedom by people in power with a lot of money, but not a lot of numbers, unless they get a group of people that are divided to fight for them, and keep them divided from “others.” Importantly, it’s actually very similar to the strategy used by oligarchs in Russia. Russian Nationalists are Putin’s biggest supporters, but instead of “DEI,” the enemy to Russian Nationalists has long been the influence of Western democracy.

Funny thing is, some of the earliest examples of Russia embracing capitalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union and creating the current government, can be traced to the Heritage Foundation. The first of its kind go between for U.S. and Russia businesses was created by a former Heritage Foundation member, Robert Krieble.

According to a 1991 Washington Post article covering a celebration of the official establishment of this business, Russia House, Krieble snuck electronic equipment to dissidents prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The corporation is also privately funded. Officers of its board are Moscow Mayor Gavril Popov; Paul Craig Roberts of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a former treasury assistant secretary; and Dean Booth, an Atlanta lawyer. Businessman Robert Krieble, who donated fax machines, computers and copiers to dissidents in the Soviet Union when “they were illegal,” Lozansky said, is one of the financial supporters.

The original founder of the Heritage Foundation was also present at the gathering covered by the Post article.

At the inauguration of Russia House, furnished only with a lectern and radio and television microphones for the ceremony, Paul Weyrich, head of a group called Free Congress, said, “When we first went to the Soviet Union we were considered foolish. But democracy is real. The change is real.”

Fellow Heritage Foundation member, Thomas Roe, is quoted as telling Krieble during the mid-1980s, “You capture the Soviet Union, I’m going to capture the States.” Roe then went on to create the State Policy Network (SPN), a network of Heritage Foundation affiliate think tanks across all 50 states, to promote Heritage Foundation policy at the state level, but disguise the think tanks as “small government” and “free market” focused.

Now, Putin actually has his own similar think tank for freedom and democracy in Germany While Russian oligarchs have become majority shareholders in Louisiana oil companies, and made donations to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s campaign.

It would seem more likely, that rather than Russia playing the long game, Russia joined the Heritage Foundation’s long game decades ago, and that modern day Russia under Putin, may actually reflect the Heritage Foundation’s test run for the creation of a privatized corporate government.

Speaking through a translator, the Post article also provides an interesting quote from the Mayor of Moscow:

“Russia House is not financed by governments but by private people,” Mayor Popov said. “Aid in the form of commercial goods and food should not be the main effort. Aid would be over soon, and all would be as before. We need a free-market economy – but we don’t have people who can run a free market,” he said, speaking through a translator. “I told {Treasury} Secretary {Nicholas} Brady that many Americans will sign treaties with ministers – who then will disappear. Trade should be with private individuals and businesses.”